


We could fight a war for peace

by thought



Series: All your dead unfinished selves [5]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Goddard Futuristics style friendship, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 19:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16002167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: A team comes together in fits and starts.





	We could fight a war for peace

May, 2013

"Wow," a teetering stack of folders says from the office door. "Nobody told me the team was getting expanded."

When it becomes clear no one else is going to do it, Pillay stands up to rescue the top half of the folder mountain. Lovelace's face is revealed, dark circles under her eyes and a smudge of ink on the tip of her nose. Pillay sets the folders down and returns to her perch leaning against the window sill. Lovelace drops the rest of the folders unceremoniously on top of her keyboard. "Seriously, don't you two have homes? I'm sure Kepler can be a neglectful parent, but I'm starting to legitimately wonder if I should be approving your vacation requests and project proposals. Do we need to fill out your performance management evaluations?"

Maxwell twitches. "That's not a thing--"

"Technically, it is," Jacobi says, from where he's curled up in a ball of hate on the floor. "But nobody takes them seriously except HR."

"I take my employees' development and performance very seriously, thank you," Lovelace says, kicking her desk chair out and collapsing into it, dropping her face into her hands.

"You literally set my performance evaluation on fire when I gave it to you," Klein says, without looking up from his phone. He'd woken up before Jacobi and thus has had longer for the painkillers to kick in.

"I was having a rough week," Lovelace objects.

"I mean, that's a reasonable response," Jacobi says.

Maxwell snorts. "You think 'set it on fire' is a reasonable response to any problem. Including people."

"Am I wrong?"

"Can I answer that?" Klein says, at the same time Maxwell says

"About so many things."

Jacobi pulls his coffee cup against his chest. It's clearly the only one who loves him.

"Jesus, Jacobi," Lovelace says, "how many gas stations did you have to go to before you found the douchiest sunglasses on Earth?"

"These were expensive, thank you," he says, pushing said sunglasses up the bridge of his nose.

"These two," Hades says, his avatar tiny and perched like some kind of faintly glowing gargoyle on the top of Lovelace's computer monitor, "had drunken post-breakup sex last night and now we're all regretting it."

"For Christ's sake," Klein says. "You don't know that's what happened."

"I mean," says Jacobi. "To be fair, that is exactly what happened."

"I feel like I regret this more and more the more time passes," Klein says.

"Wow, me too," Jacobi says, falsely cheerful. Lovelace is staring at her computer like it just jumped up and punched her in the face.

"God," she says. "You know, there was part of me that expected people would be smarter in the private sector."

Maxwell's eyebrows go up. Jacobi gets a sinking feeling in his stomach unrelated to his hangover, but he holds off on saying anything until Lovelace looks over at him.

"You knew about this?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The transfer," she says.

Jacobi sighs. "Yeah, I knew he was gonna do it."

"I'm feeling very out of the loop," Klein says.

"Hang on," says Hades, and then "Oh. Well. That’s certainly… a thing."

"Security means nothing to you, does it?" Maxwell grumbles. Hades smiles sweetly.

"It's ok, you don't have to be embarrassed, the security protocols can be very challenging for some people, we all understand."

"Excuse me," says Lovelace. "I need to go yell at Kepler."

"Can I come?" Jacobi says.

"No."

He follows her into the hall anyway, and she turns to him as soon as the door closes behind him.

"He always says he was discharged from the military because he was too smart and/or violent for them," she says. "But you can tell me the truth, it's ok. He was actually discharged because he doesn't understand the basics of asset dispersal and succession planning for stability."

"Listen," says Jacobi. "He shouldn't even be in the field, everybody knows that. If he's putting all his eggs in one basket it's because he believes the eggs can keep themselves from being broken."

"Maybe don't--"

"I'm hungover coming off a night of poor decisions and other people's emotional issues, do you really want to judge my metaphors right now?"

"You gonna be ok with this?" she asks. "I'll be his 2IC on ops, not just on paper."

"I'm not," Jacobi says. "But that's not really relevant, is it? He wants you on our team, he wants you to be his second. We both know Warren Kepler always gets what he wants."

Lovelace nods, shortly. "Yeah," she says.

"You get to decide where your team gets assigned," Jacobi offers, like it’s going to be any consolation if she doesn’t want to be transferred to Warren Kepler’s supervillain death squad.

Lovelace presses her lips together. "Yeah," she says, again. "Ok. Ok. I'm... gonna go talk to him."

"Decided against the yelling?"

She shrugs. "We'll see. I'm holding it in reserve."

Jacobi starts to grin but it feels too fake even for him to pull off. "Good luck," he says, and goes back into her office. It has always felt a little bit like a haven, but as the door swings closed behind him and he catches Maxwell's eye across the room he just feels a little sick.

*  
March, 2014

Doug knows he's fucked even before he fully wakes up. He's groggy, sleep a soupy fog that refuses to shake off, and there's a weird tickle around his nose or upper lip that he is definitely gonna scratch as soon as he has the energy to move his arm from under the blankets. It's not the grogginess of painkillers -- and oh boy, he's just so goddamn thrilled that he can differentiate that now -- and not the grogginess of a hangover. This makes him think of Luke-warm canned soup and daytime TV and sticky sweet artificial cherry melted to paper wrappers. Nobody ever said his brain was subtle.

"Noooo," he says, or at least that's the emotion he's trying to express. The word might get a little lost given that half of his face is smushed into the pillow and actually speaking sets off a cascade of tiny razorblades all the way down his throat.

"Yeeesss," Jacobi says.

Doug sits straight up, feels the entire room lurch sideways, blacks out for a few seconds, and lands with his face on Maxwell's stomach.

"I'm too young to die," Doug says.

"It's a cold, don't be a baby," Maxwell retorts.

Doug is definitely not thinking about the cold. He can literally see the gun on the night table from where he's sprawled, what the fuck?

"We brought soup," Jacobi says. "Also, you're... uh. Leaking."

"Oh God," Maxwell says, trying to squirm out from under him, shoving the top of his head until he's forced to roll away. "Did it get on me?"

"Where am I leaking?!" Doug demands, horrified, imagining himself dying of blood loss in his own bed, too numbed by the fear that waking up to Alana Maxwell and Daniel Jacobi hovering over his sickbed creates. The only other option he can think of is that he's somehow pissed himself, but he really wants to think the universe is kinder than that.

"Jesus, Maxwell," Jacobi says. "It's just snot."

Maxwell makes a high-pitched noise in the back of her throat and rolls off the bed entirely, half crawling half running towards the bathroom. Doug brings up the back of his hand to the faint tickle on his upper lip and makes a face when it comes away wet. Disgusting.

"Anyway," Jacobi says. "Soup. In a can, we didn't actually make it or anything."

"I appreciate that," Doug says, and then coughs up what feels like half of his left lung. Jacobi pats his back awkwardly, too light to do any actual good but too hard to be soothing.

"How did you two even get in?" Doug asks, as soon as he can breathe again. "I definitely didn't give you a key. Like. I remember making the conscious choice never to provide any of you with a key. I'm sure Kepler has one, but I can't imagine him sharing it with you two unless-- oh Jesus. You really are here to kill me, aren't you? I've become a liability and now you're here to dispose of me before I go spilling corporate secrets in my feverish delirium."

"We brought you soup!" Jacobi says, indignant. "If TV has taught me anything it's that if somebody you know is sick in bed, you bring them soup to cure them. Maxwell confirmed, she looked it up."

"Sure, a last meal," Doug says. "And somehow I'm not even surprised you had to do research on friendship."

"Hey now," Jacobi says, holding up his hands. "Let's not get carried away."

Doug hunches his shoulders, pretends the next coughing fit is worse than it actually is, and glides right on past that incredibly awkwardly crushed emotional vulnerability. "The chicken noodle soup thing is actually vaguely legit," he says. "The salt in the broth can help decrease the soreness in your throat. At least according to Wikipedia."

Doug can tell you a lot about treating the common cold. A lot. The first time Anne had gotten sick he and Kate had done... a completely normal and not at all panicked amount of research. Anyway.

"So you guys just, what, picked my lock so you could bring me a can of soup and hover creepily over me while I slept? That's... really terrifying. And weirdly endearing."

"We didn't pick the lock," Jacobi says.

Doug waits.

"Maxwell bet me I could get in through the kitchen window,” Jacobi admits.

"We're on the fifth floor," Doug says. Jacobi waves that away.

"Oh, that wasn't the difficult part. Do you know how many barn swallows have nested under your window?"

"Oh," says Doug. "Yeah. They're kind of cute."

"They're pests," Jacobi corrects him. "And they shit everywhere."

"Did you track bird shit through my apartment?" Doug demands. "I thought the implication was that you *aren't* here to kill me."

"Technically I never said that," Jacobi says, and flops backwards so he's lying stretched out on the far side of the bed.

"Cool," says Doug. "Great."

"We're not here to kill you," Maxwell calls from the hallway. "The opposite. We're here to make sure you're still alive to handle the Morocco mission next week. Because if you aren't, Kepler might actually kill whoever replaces you. And as hilarious as that would be, Morocco's already enough of a clusterfuck without adding teamkilling."

"God," says Doug. "I changed my mind. Please kill me."

"What's your Netflix password?" Jacobi asks, fiddling with his phone. "Actually, never mind. Maxwell, what's his Netflix password?"

"Here, I'll put it in," Doug says, hurriedly.

"AKG0217," Maxwell says. Doug glares.

"Don't you have your own Netflix account?"

"Nope," Jacobi says.

"Can I at least have the soup before you take over my media consumption?"

"It's on the counter,” Jacobi says. Maxwell comes in carrying her tablet and stretches out across the foot of the bed, back braced against Jacobi's knees.

"Great," Doug says. "I guess I'll just go... do that. You guys are really nailing this whole 'take care of the sick person' game."

"Uh huh," Maxwell says, obviously not listening.

"I'm gonna shower," Doug says. "If you here a crash I've probably fallen and died, please leave me to pass gently into this good night or whatever."

Maxwell actually looks up from her phone long enough to frown at him. "We're not going to let you die, Doug."

Doug waits.

"I can't let a common cold beat me at this.”

Doug goes into the bathroom and tells himself he hopes they’re gone by the time he gets out of the shower.

They are not gone.

Four days later, when Doug comes into Kepler’s office to see Jacobi slumped on the couch with his hoody pulled up over his face and a crushed box of expired cold medication on the floor beside him, he just shakes his head.

“Should I… uhh, deal with that, Sir?” he asks. Kepler exhales.

“Please, Mr. Eiffel.”

Doug reaches over and pushes the hood a bit back, exposing Jacobi’s eyes and allowing Doug to feel the heat radiating off of his forehead. “Come on,” Doug says. “Soup time.”

“I’m not sick,” Jacobi says.

Doug wraps a hand in the hoody and steadily pulls upward until Jacobi stumbles to his feet, swaying slightly. “I definitely believe you. Come on.”

“Fuck you,” Jacobi says, and then coughs for a good ninety seconds. Doug uses his distraction to shepherd him out of the office, and once they’re in the otherwise empty elevator, Jacobi leans his forehead against Doug shoulder. He straightens up as soon as they hit the main floor, but Doug keeps a discreet hold on the back of his hoody to keep him from escaping.

*  
August, 2016

The company-wide email from the head of the Social Committee hits Kepler's inbox at 10:03 on Monday morning, and it hits his trash folder at 10:05. He's in the middle of trying (and failing) to charm the French president's head-of-security, and the email arrives along with two separate meeting invites from Mr. Cutter's EA with alarmingly generic subject lines, and a message from one of Clark's underlings with five massive attachments for his review. At the same time he clicks the delete button, still making polite listening noises into the phone, there's an ominous rattling from the wall outside his office door closely followed by the gentle and entirely unwelcome splash of water trickling onto the carpet. This, he thinks, is what he gets for taking the weekend off.

Somehow, even with the email deleted, an appointment for his annual blood donation pops up in his calendar. He's blaming Maxwell, even if it is Lovelace who, a week later, shows up at his door ten minutes before his scheduled time.

"It's your once-a-year opportunity to be a good person," she announces. "Are you excited?"

"I am not," he says. "I am also busy." He's standing up even as he says it, fully aware that any protests he might make are just for the sake of his own dignity. As soon as Lovelace had learned that he, like her, was a universal donor, she had dragged him (once literally) to Goddard's employee blood drive.

One of the hangars has been cleared out to host the blood donation staff, experimental aircraft and grimy tool benches replaced with neat rows of reclining chairs and curtained off sections holding folding tables and chairs, each with a Goddard brand tablet and a hemoglobin test kit. From the far corner the smell of soup wafts, accompanied by the low chatter of polite smalltalk and the crinkling of food wrappers.

"The kids should be around here somewhere," Lovelace says. "I think they were booked in half an hour before us."

"Stealing food, I'm sure," he says.

They each get efficiently swept off by a uniformed nurse, Lovelace waving cheerfully before she vanishes into one of the curtained off cubicles. Kepler takes a seat in his own folding plastic chair and starts filling out his information on the tablet.

"Employee Id?" the nurse says, not even trying to sound like he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. He keeps checking his phone, and every minute or so he has to turn away to cover a yawn.

Kepler passes his ID card over. The nurse scans it, makes a quick note, then frowns.

"You're on the no-go list," he says.

If Kepler were a different sort of person, the casual statement would have sent a jolt of sick shock through his stomach. It isn't as if he'd ever had any interest in donating blood back before the restrictions had been lifted, but he still firmly believes it's nobody's business who he sleeps with but his own and his partner's. "I'm sorry?"

"Warren Kepler, right? You're marked as ineligible. Is this your first time trying to donate? You should have gotten an email about this."

"I donate every year," Kepler says. "And have been for the past seven years. There's no reason I should be suddenly ineligible."

The nurse shrugs. "Take it up with your assigned company physician." Kepler's hand shoots out, snatching the tablet from the nurse and scanning the list of names.

"Whoa, hey, doctor/patient privilege, buddy," the nurse snaps. Kepler lets him grab the tablet back. He's seen all he needs to.

Kepler, Warren J  
Young, Rachel K  
King, Bradley J  
Reimann, Victor G

Almost all of them familiar names. Almost all of them departments heads, with a few lawyers and scientists mixed in. And his name. Right beside Young’s. He’s learned very quickly that any list that includes Young’s name is not a list he wants to be on. Occasionally it’s a list he should be on instead of her. Either way, nothing good can come of both of them being lumped together for any reason.

"Who gave you that list?" Kepler asks, standing up and stepping to the side of the table so there's nothing between him and the still-seated nurse.

"I have no idea where it came from. Dr. Mendez emailed it out last night to all of us, just like she does every year."

"So this isn't an aberration then."

The nurse rolls his eyes. "No. There's always a list of people who can't donate for whatever reason. We keep records of all employees' past information, and some people have factors that make them permanently ineligible."

"Right," Kepler says, absently, already done with this conversation. He walks away, leaving the nurse texting furiously and probably glaring daggers into his back.

Someone had decided it would be an excellent morale booster to have a free barbeque coinciding with the blood drive, so crossing the quad unaccosted is an exercise in evasion. By the time he makes it to the Agriculture, Biology, and Chemical Engineering building the only thing more permanent than the scent of charred meat in his suit jacket is the obnoxious pop song playing on repeat in the back of his head.

Biological research is in the basement-- officially for security reasons and to make any necessary quarantine procedures as simple as possible. If you ask Jacobi (Kepler hasn't, but that doesn't save him) it's because the biologists are gremlins who shrivel up if they see daylight. The further he descends into the inexplicably damp concrete halls the more inclined Kepler is to believe Jacobi's explanation.

Dr. Bradley King's office is at the far southeast corner, tucked in behind a glass hydroponics dome filled with startling colourful flowers and a short hallway with a steal door at the end that not even Kepler's access card will open.

He's never met King in person, but he's been on conference calls with the man and occasionally he'll come up as a background character in one of Jacobi's accounts of terrorizing his coworkers. Kepler has never had reason to pull his file, and from his voice he is expecting a younger man-- perhaps his own age. But the man who is sitting behind the desk when Kepler strides into the office looks more suited to waving around pictures of his grandchildren and complaining (justifiably) about the complexity of the latest operating system. His cardigan is rumpled and his silver hair is in desperate need of a trim. In short, he looks utterly unremarkable. Kepler rests his hand on his hip, close to the pistol holstered at the small of his back.

"Mr. Kepler," King says, setting aside the clipboard he's been frowning down at so he can frown up at Kepler instead. "Can I help you?"

Kepler bristles at the disrespect. "Dr. King," he says, pointedly. "I require some information from you."

King slides off his glasses to rub his eyes. "Certainly, I'll see what I can do. What do you need?"

"You are aware that our names both appear on a list of individuals specially marked as unable to participate in today's blood donation drive."

King exhales, and slides his glasses back on resignedly. "Yes. Just as I'm sure you're aware you weren't meant to know that list existed, let alone who else is on it."

"You understand, there is very little within Goddard that I am not permitted to know."

"Take it up with Dr. Pryce," King says, shrugging. "Or I suppose you fall under Mr. Cutter's purview, don't you?”

“I think it would go easier on all of us if you just told me,” Kepler says. “No need to bother Mr. Cutter with this little oversight.”

“Yes, well,” says King. “Given that I enjoy my continued presence on this mortal plane, I’m going to have to insist you bring your questions to Mr. Cutter or simply leave this to be one of life’s little mysteries.”

“You realize I can make your continued existence a very... unpleasant one.”

King shrugs. “I can promise you, Kepler, there’s nothing you can do to me that would hold a candle to Dr. Pryce’s methods should anyone disappoint her.”

Kepler thinks about breaking a few of King's fingers, just to make the walk over here worth it. King watches him, patiently.

"Hmm," Kepler says, and smiles his most unsettling smile. "You've been... very helpful, Doctor. Thank you."

King looks gratifyingly concerned, and Kepler turns on his heel and exits the room before he can ask any irritating questions.

King, Bradley  
Young, Rachel

Kepler's going to figure out why he's on this list if only to explain the terrible company his name is keeping.

*  
January, 2018

Maxwell and Jacobi are loitering, waiting for Kepler to get out of his meeting with Rachel Young so they can catch him before he dives back into the bottomless abyss that is coordinating the Sydney operation. Jacobi can only forge his signature on their equipment requisitions so many times before people start to get suspicious, and he's been claiming he can make the boat fly now for so long that Maxwell is invested in the outcome.

There's a boardroom at the far end of the hallway from Young's office, and if the quality of the suits coming in and out sporadically and wafting the scent of expensive coffee out the door every time they open it are anything to go buy, there's a good chance there's a meeting happening fancy enough to warrant catering. And not just 'I found this box of crackers in the back of my cupboard and I know you'll eat them' (Lovelace), or 'I liberated this vodka from the interns, I assumed it would be to your tastes' (Kepler), but actual quality show-off coffee and juice and pastries and maybe those little chocolate things with the hazelnuts, if she's very lucky.

So, yes, maybe they've been loitering a little further away from Young's office than is advisable if they're really determined to pin Kepler down before he can escape. But there have been some very promising noises drifting through the boardroom door-- the soft chime of the Goddard mobile OS shutting down, the snap of binder rings, the shuffle of a lot of people moving at the same time. As soon as the buzz of chatter starts up, Maxwell grabs Jacobi's arm and holds up her tablet in front of both of them.

"We're discussing something very important," she tells him. "So important we've stopped in the middle of the hallway after being overcome by our brilliant thoughts on it."

"Ok," Jacobi says, unhelpfully. "I am very invested in this fictional discussion."

The boardroom door swings open, and the first crowd of people bumble out, chipper small talk and hushed professional discussions mixing in irritating bursts, not muffled by the carpet or the sound-dampening in the walls nearly well enough.

"You had better be," Maxwell says, darkly, keeping a watch on the door out of the corner of her eye. Hopefully, Kepler and Young won't choose this exact moment to finish their meeting and/or kill each other.

"Definitely an important meeting," Jacobi says. "There's Accounting. Likelihood of snacks is increasing."

"Some of them are coming this way," Maxwell warns him, ducking her head even closer to the tablet and waving a hand like she's trying to underscore a point. “And Lovelace told us we’re not allowed to call her Accounting anymore.”

“Lovelace can make that call when she can tell me her actual name without double checking the directory,” Jacobi says.

A smaller cluster of people straggle off from the flood towards the elevators and start down the hall past where they're standing.

"I really appreciate you taking the time today," a man is saying, one hand fiddling with the end of his startlingly metallic gold tie.

"It was our pleasure," a woman who looks vaguely familiar assures him. "I don't want to say too much until the NDAs are all in order, but I think the work we can do together will be revolutionary."

"I'm sure my people will look forward to working with you both," he says. "Dr. Xu, your work on artificial neural networks was groundbreaking eight years ago, I can only imagine where you are now. And Dr. Pryce, if you can do even half the things you claim, I think revolutionary might be rather an understatement."

Maxwell's entire body freezes. Jacobi grabs her arm, hard, and she almost drops the tablet. The third person in the group, who is now practically right in front of them, is remarkably unremarkable, dark hair in a bun, clothing simple blacks and greys, jaws and cheekbones perhaps sharper than the rest of her frame would suggest. but then she turns slightly and Maxwell gets a look at her eyes. Her first thought is 'I want them'. Her second, equally useless thought is 'I could probably kill her before anyone realized what was happening if I do it right now'.

"That's Pryce," she says, almost soundless, barely moving her lips. Jacobi's grip on her arm tightens to the point she's sure he'll leave bruises.

"Maxwell..."

Maxwell is thinking about Hera. About the hours-- days-- weeks she's spent trying to work through the AI's anxieties, the trigger built in to her base code, a fundamental aspect of herself always working against her. She's thinking about "There's a reason I give these things my voice."

"I'm going to kill her," Maxwell says, still barely audible.

"Not right now you're not," Jacobi responds, equally soft. "You're smarter than that. Don't get emotional."

It's a low blow, designed to hurt and to shame, but it works. He's right. She can’t kill Pryce in the middle of Goddard headquarters, surrounded by people. She shouldn't want to kill Pryce at all, but that's secondary. She does. It's a fact. It's not going to change.

Pryce and the others reach the far end of the hall and turn the corner just as Young's office door bangs open. Kepler storms out, and is gaze flickers towards them and then away.

"Sir," Jacobi says, loudly. Kepler starts to walk away, fast, in the same direction Pryce had gone.

"I'll get him," Jacobi says, determinedly, holding the tablet and stylus with the same confidently threatening grip he might a new gun just before a firefight. "You should go see if they have those chocolate things."

"With the hazelnuts?" she asks, forcing her voice to settle back into something close to normal.

"Exactly," he says. "Also if there's muffins left you should just, like, bring all of them. Eiffel's minions keep stealing them."

"Does it count as stealing if we stole them first?"

"Bye, Maxwell," Jacobi says, and takes off at a half-jog in pursuit of Kepler.

Maxwell takes a deep breath and walks toward the now-empty boardroom. There will be time, she tells herself. She knows what Pryce looks like now. That’s half the battle right there.


End file.
